Captains

You have two choices here, Tapper is a melee brawler, and Esters is better at playing football and the ranged game.

Tapper

Tapper is excellent at brawling due to his Commanding Aura, and he is pretty hard to take out due to Tough Hide.

Tapper is vulnerable to heavy control teams, due to the Brewer's lack of speed buffs and Dodges.

Tapper usually wants to activate early, since his Commanding Aura is extremely strong. He should build momentum to give away the 2 extra influence from Old Jake's.

His momentous KD column is very easy to get off, and useful to activate the damage buffs on Hooper and Spigot.

If Tapper cannot reach his target, he can still run, put up the Commanding Aura, and use Mark Target to make someone else get in.

Esters

Esters is better at control, football, and the ranged game than Tapper.

Esters can be a good kicker against teams that can Mind Control (or similar abilities), since she cancels the first Character Play with her Gluttonous Mass.

Friday can be buffed to unkillable stats with Esters and Spigot (6+ defense, 1 armor).

Mascots

Scum the murdercat, or Quaff the docile dog.

Scum

Scum is good for holding the ball against teams that can Mind Control (or similar abilities). Since he has only 1/4" Kick he has a great chance of missing, and he cannot kick very far. Some models with these abilities are Obulus (Morticians) and Siren (Fishermen).

Scum has a long threat range and can definitely score goals. A simple combo is 6" Dodge from Friday + Shadow Like + 8" Run = 16" movement with a 20" goal threat. A Bonus Timed tap in has an 89% chance to score, with 2 dice on 3+.

Scum can also do surprise pushes so that enemy players get into range of your beaters. Double momentous double push requires only 5 hits, and that is not impossible on a charge.

Scum is one of the best damage dealers in Brewers. A very short playbook + Tooled Up, Commanding Aura, or Esters buff can make the cat deal 4 damage per wrap. The Sic'Em Plot Card is very strong with Scum, you can do 20+ damage in one activation against low defense targets.

Check out the great explanation on Vincent Curkov's excellent quality YouTube channel:

Quaff

Quaff is a dog. Who in their right mind would pick a dog over a cat?

Players

The Brewers have a good selection of damage dealers and football players, but few control pieces.

Friday

Friday is great for kicking and receiving against teams that have ranged character plays. With Esters' and Spigot's bonuses she will be defense 6, and pretty difficult to land Character Plays on.

5+ defense (within 4" of Spigot) and 1 armor are among the best defensive stats in the game. With these stats and a column 1 T she is pretty hard to get the ball off.

Hooper

Hooper has insane damage output. True Grit gives him 7 TAC, which is already high enough to start wrapping against low defence targets. With Commanding Aura, Tooled Up, and Shove The Boot In, he is at 8 TAC and +3 damage against KD models. Three attacks from a fully buffed Hooper can take out most unhurt players.

Hooper is also one of the few 2" melee models in Brewers, which can be important against Unpredictable Movement players like Greyscales, Mash and Midas.

Mash

Mash has 2" melee and Unpredictable Movement, and his counter-attacks give a 4" Push and knocked-down with Howzat!?.. This makes him annoying to pin down and an excellent ball killer (model that prevents the opponent from getting the ball and scoring).

While the miniature makes Bash look like a tough guy, he is not nearly as punchy or tanky as Tapper and Hooper. His role is to be an annoyance, ball killer, and snap shot threat. Use him against teams that want to make 2 or 3 goals to win!

PintPot

PintPot's advantage is extreme influence efficiency. With 6 free actions during the game from Six Pack, he can often do his job on 0 influence. Jog up, drink a bottle, autohit everyone in melee for 2 damage + bleed, drink another and activate Come On Then!

Hitting a model that was going to do something important with a momentous Concussion can interfere with the opponent's plans, and also rob them of opportunities to their own momentum themselves with the lost influence. Berserk players like Windle are perfect targets for influence removal.

Not that Rowdy just affects PintPot when he is attacking. Ganging up and Crowding Out still work against PintPot when others are attacking him, so if you run him alone into a bunch of Butchers or Farmers, expect to get beaten up in return.

PintPot can ignore a Character Play with Come On Then! which makes him a great model to send in front of the others against players like Corsair and Siren than can pull in your models.

Spigot

Spigot buffs movement, damage, and football, so he is a very useful all-round player. Just with the abilities on his own card he has a 17" goal threat.

Spigot can put out both his buffs (Time's Called and Tooled Up) with just 1 influence allocated and 1 momentum, so he can very pretty efficient.

Spigot is one of the least solid Brewer players. He has no defensive abilities outside of getting 3 hits on a counter-attack, which is not something to count on. Usually you would prefer to keep him behind your other players until it is time to commit him against a KD enemy player.

Veteran Spigot

Veteran Spigot is purely a striker. He does not have any of Spigot's team buffs, so he seems interesting in a completely football focused lineup.

The greatest challenge with Veteran Spigot is that he cannot be played together with normal Spigot, so you are losing your best all-round player and access to Tooled Up and Time's Called.

Stave

Stave is great against slow melee opponents, like Windle (Farmers). He is less good against more mobile and spread out opponents.

Weaknesses: Stave is a momentum piñata for the opposing team, and is the best possible target for enemy strikers to bounce off. It is a often good idea to try to keep him out of mêlée combat.

Stoker

You can trigger Burning Passion by either throwing a Molotov or using Human Ball of Fire. Esters or Harry "The Hat" can also trigger it.

Stoker is pretty tanky with his 3+/2 defensive stats, automatic condition removal and regeneration. He is a good pick against condition damage teams.

Union

The two most interesting Union choices for Brewers are Harry "The Hat" and Hemlocke. Damage dealing Union players don't benefit from all the in-faction Brewers buffs like Commanding Aura and Tooled Up. It is therefore usually better to use in-faction players as brawlers.

Harry "The Hat" Hallahan

Harry is no longer a great brawler after the nerfs, but he is still great at setting up plays. He allows the team to dodge forward while building momentum, and his double pushes can be good for pulling an enemy player in and beat him up. An extra Molotov helps set up Stoker's damage buff. Goad can really screw up for your opponent.

Hemlocke

Hemlocke is a good pick against teams that do a lot of condition damage. Smelling Salts can cure herself and the team, and Magical Brew heals herself.

Going last can be good against Smoke, it allows Hemlocke to clear conditions after Smoke does all her AOE duplication and movement shenanigans.

There is some overlap between Esters' Soothing Voice and Hemlocke's Smelling Salts. This makes Hemlocke a bit less useful with Esters.

Blind is very powerful both against strong melee opponents and against strikers. Allocating 1 influence for Blind can force the opponent to activate likely Blind targets first. It's usually a good idea to Bonus Time important Blinds.

Rosters and Lineups

Balanced Brawl Team

Tapper, Scum, Friday, Hooper, Spigot + tech choice.

Lots of damage potential in a brawl with Tapper, Scum, Hooper and Spigot, decent football game with Friday and Spigot, one really long range threat with Friday + Scum